


The Dinner Party, The Thief, The Brother & His Lover

by colisahotnorthernmess



Category: Frasier (TV)
Genre: Adultery, Dinner Party, F/M, Fantasizing, Jealousy, Neck Kissing, Seduction, Sibling Incest, Touching, character study elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-29 23:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19030087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colisahotnorthernmess/pseuds/colisahotnorthernmess
Summary: A little rambling I started whilst watching Frasier a few weeks ago - not the kind of thing I would usually write - it's a bit of a character study within a short ficlet, focussing on Frasier's jealousy and the way that he views his brother. Based on the episode where Daphne and Niles are trying to throw a dinner party without Frasier, and Frasier simply can't stand it - to the point that he even creates a back-up dinner for the event, praying that they call him for help with the catering.





	The Dinner Party, The Thief, The Brother & His Lover

It was an outright farce. When  _wasn't_  it when the Cranes were involved? Niles should have listened to Daphne when she'd told him that he was just no good at throwing dinner parties. Had it been  _so_  absurd to have suggested that shish kebobs might be a suitable dish for the catering team? How ever would he have guessed that one of the guest's toupees would catch fire? Glumly, he had tossed the scorched hairpiece into the punchbowl. This time, to mark the unveiling of Niles Crane's newest piece of art, Daphne had insisted that she would handle things _alone_.

However, Daphne should have listened to  _Niles_  when he'd said he didn't even want to _contemplate_ a dinner party without Frasier's help. Frankly, Daphne was a fool to think that she could do better. But, during the disaster that was her attempt at a flawless evening, with their prize artwork drawn on and ruined by Roz's daughter Alice, all of the guests mistakenly thinking that Martin Crane was a famous artist, and Daphne's mother bringing a four-poster bed through the ceiling, it was her encounter with Frasier that would be the most memorable part. It had all started when the Mancunian beauty had burnt the hens.

Frasier had offered his assistance in the cooking department should she have needed it, and, right now, she bloody well _needed_ it. And it pained her having to call upon him, knowing how thoroughly smug the elder Crane brother would be upon picking up the phone. But, if only smugness was where it would end. This was the call he'd been waiting for. _Bingo_. He'd had food wrapped in foil and placed in labelled tupperwares, prepared for this very eventuality, since early this morning. But what did it all mean? What did it say about _Frasier_ that he already _had_ a spare dinner on-hand for the party?

From the beginning, he'd been praying for it all to go wrong. He couldn't _bear_ the thought of Niles' gathering being better off without him. It didn't help matters when he overheard Niles being rude about his signature sauce, saying that Daphne's tasted better. As he so often had been throughout their childhood and adult life, he was simply jealous, with a capital 'J' - and not merely of his brother's party throwing skills. How had Niles managed to charm such a bewitching little thing as Daphne? Mourning his own failures in love and envying his sibling's success, he placed a reassuring hand on the female's bare skin, caressing a freckled shoulder.

"Everything will be fine, Daphne," he soothed, moving behind her. "And Niles needn't even know I was here," he leered.

What was worse for Frasier, as a fully qualified psychiatrist, he _knew_ and recognised his symptoms and the deeply rooted reasons behind what he was doing: this cocktail of anger, jealousy and oneupmanship, which took away all rational thought. One minute he'd been flavouring the soup with white wine; the next minute, downing a gulp from the bottle; the next, bringing Daphne closer with one hand, fingers brushing her arm. The emotions and the alcohol swirling inside his brain, he realised that he _wanted_ what _Niles_ had - he was never content with his own life.

"Is it time to brown the hens?" she'd asked, in a frenzied panic.

"Not yet," came a calming voice - the same one heard every day on the radio, consoling the nation. "In the meantime, we wait," his breath was now tickling her flesh, and she somehow felt so comforted by his presence, and so safe, that she reached a hand backwards and guided him by his broad shoulders, bringing him down towards her. He covered her hand, with a soft, velvet-like touch. And, not before long, he was kissing her, just beneath the ear. Just like that, he had  _won_. His brother had everything and, like a thief in the night, he would steal it away from him. He would not be second best; he could not face failure. How _dare_ they exclude him from their dinner party organising.

"Your father will be back soon," she gasped.

"I sent him home to fetch my ramekins - it'll take him the best part of half an hour to lay a hand on them." His dad would later berate him for not calling them 'nut bowls' - he would have found them much earlier if he had.

"But what about Niles?--" she was breathless as he sucked her ear.

"--You told him to leave," he mumbled, devouring the contours of her revealing dress with his hands, cupping her breasts and pushing her over against the worktop. But the truth was - he didn't care whether or not Niles _did_ walk in. Because then Niles would know that Frasier was the superior sibling. If truth be told, this was nothing to do with Daphne - as pretty as she was; it was about Niles. And now it was Niles in his mind's eye as he kissed and kissed, uncontrollably - his hands squeezing Niles' bare chest - his teeth on Niles' shoulder, creating a manly shudder as they sank into skin. What _did_ it say about him, he had to wonder. As a fully qualified psychiatrist, he tried his very hardest to block it out, but he never quite _could_.


End file.
